Resolutions

For the last few years, I have had basically the same resolutions. This year, they are slightly different and so I am going to post them.

1. Take better care of myself. I now run at least three times a week, which is much better than I have done in the past, so this is more on the sleep, eat and drink more water vein.

2. Consistently have a clean house. I'm really good about doing a major clean every few weeks and then slowly letting it get bad again. Daily, I need to have everything to good better order.

3. Make dinner more, eat out less. My kids are really at the age, where we need to be sitting at home, around the dinner table talking about the day, reading a scripture verse and just being together as a family. And, I have to quit the regular "lunch" date for myself, where I grab a yummy bite somewhere and then I am too full to enjoy dinner with my family.

4. Less time on-line. It is easy for me to collapse in front of the computer at the end of the night and not interact with my husband and not finish up projects started during the day.

5. Give my kids more individual time. We regularly have family game night, and family movie night but I need to focus more individual attention on each child.

6. Quit doing $25 Amazon purchases. :)

7. Reach out to others more. I tend to isolate myself (which I am really fine with) in the bubble of my family. This is great for "us" but not so great for my kids. I need to make an effort to have other families with kids my kids ages over to our house or invite people to do things with us. While others seem to have great get-togethers where families all bond, we tend to just go off as a family by ourselves (which is how my husband and I both are). I think my kids need more than what we are offering. I think. (Still struggling with this one, if anyone has any good thoughts on this, let me know.)

And, with my husband, we are continuing our plan of going somewhere every time off we have available. This past year, we did local things--like Wendover, and downtown Salt Lake and even more far off places like St. George, California, Bear Lake and Colorado. Most were three day vacations but we did do a few longer ones. We budgeted for it, spent less on other things and every trip was well worth it. The memories we have created and family bonding time we created was well worth every penny.

New Year's Eve

Ok, this should be my final "holiday" post and then I am caught up.

On New Year's Eve, some friends of ours put together a very last minute get together. Because it was last minute, we ended up driving all over the valley for our fun but it was well worth it. We started at pizza place (about 20 minutes away from our houses) where a room was reserved for our group. When all was said and done about seven families from our neighborhood got together.

After that, we headed across town to a bowling ally where someone in the group had reserved seven lanes for us. I had my best bowling night ever, scoring a 147! I beat everyone in the group with the exception of one man--an ex BYU football player. (He got a 153).

Notice my excited face in this picture.

We then ended up at a friend's house (a few houses up from ours) for the rest of the night. The little kids started fading fast and a lot of them fell asleep on my friend's dining room floor.

Fireworks at 11:00 pm and 12:00 am. (To accommodate people not wanting to stay up to midnight.)

Great fun, great friends.

Film Festival

Every year, we have a film festival with my husband's siblings. In past years, we have done it later in January but because so many came into town for Christmas this year, we did it New Year's Day. We always host and Dentist husband always makes or buys sushi for the event.

The basic rules of the film festival are that the movies have to be in DVD format, they should be no longer than eight minutes long and if you live out of state (yes, family members out of state make movies and mail them to us and we refer to them as foreign films), we have a deadline when the need to be at our house.

This year, my three kids wanted to make individual movies. Here is toothsome #2 introducing her movie. After each movie is shown, we have a question and answer session afterwards.

Dentist husband talking about his movie.

My father in law always makes this "Oscar" out of money and awards it to one person's film who thinks is the best. This year toothsome #2 won. (She did a funny movie based on the Geico money TV commercials.)

Later in the month, my sister in law compiles them all onto one DVD and mails all of us copies. It keeps all of connected (even the out of staters) and we always have fun.

The Day After Christmas and Sock Exchange

On the 26h, we always get together at my in-laws house for a gift exchange and the annual "Sock Exchange"

Toothsome #4 with her cousin and uncle

Dentist husband thrilled with the socks he got from his sister.

Sock Exchange: My father in law started this tradition years ago with his kids and it has continued even with in-laws. Instead of having Christmas socks with candy in them, they are filled with practical items as well as not-so-practical (OK, junk) items. We then play a white elephant like game, trading and exchanging items from our pile of stuff. Here is my brother-in-law with some Spam and a cowboy hat he was preparing to exchange. It is always fun and loud and competitive.

My nephew modeling a mystery gift he chose not to exchange--a zebra Snuggie. This was wrapped and was not allowed to be opened until the end of the sock exchange. Sometimes mystery gifts are good (gift cards, etc) and sometimes not so good (zebra print Snuggies and Richard Simmons exercise videos). This event is often the highlight of Christmas.

Sights of Christmas

Toothsome #1 making candy.

Toothsome #2 playing with her new Pixos

Toothsome #2 working on her poster

Toothsome #3 playing with his baseball cards.

My very full glove tree. I LOVE this item and ordered a 2nd one this year from Plow and Hearth. It is backordered but well worth the wait.

Eating left overs in front of the TV. (I seemed to cook about once a week with all of the extra food from Christmas parties, etc.)

My nativity from my study abroad in Israel.

Last but not least, the annual tree pull. At the end of the season, we tie our tree to back of our car and pull the kids on it very slowly for a few yards before we take to the local drop off. You would think they were at Disneyland.

Christmas Morning

Toothsome number 4 got a kitchen. It took Santa 2 1/2 hours to put together and one of the parts was broken. Santa really hopes she loves this because Santa and Mrs. Santa were close to divorcing over this item when all was said in done. So far, she loves it.

Toothsome #2 with her new chest for the end of her bed and timer book mark.

Toothsome #1 with his Lego Mindstorm. He has asked Santa for this for three years and he finally came through. We might have a computer programmer on our hands.

Toothsome #4 loving all of the candy Santa dropped.

Toothsome #3 with his beloved drums. Dentist husband loves them too and has played them almost as much as toothsome #3.

Toothsome #2 with her beloved orange. She talks about getting an orange in her stocking with almost the same amount of excitement as toys. (And, it is not like her parents deprive her of oranges normally).

Ballerina dolls from Pottery Barn.

Opening presents--Toothsome #1 was very excited about getting Monopoly (the credit card edition).

My boys in their BYU hats.

Christmas Eve

Homemade guacamole

The annual counting, and messing with the presents. (They tried to make them look like a Santa hat this year).

Fondue

Opening of the Christmas eve pajamas.

Everyone in their new pajamas. (Toothsome #4 was trying her hardest to get on the naughty list that night. It didn't work but she gave it a good go.)